July 29 - death of the craftsman

[droqen]

[AB]

- *bigbee
- game design
- boids
- jul 8 until now?
- hmm

[droqen]

[biggest-beef] I happened upon the writing of a game designer's game designer named biggest_beef at some point. Now my computer serves up his* blog now and then. (*Tonally, I have to assume he's a dude. There are no pronouns listed anywhere and i just have to guess based on vibes. So, beef's a he/him until he tells me otherwise.)

He serves up bits of game design wisdom that aren't wrong, but they come from such a specific place that I can't relate anymore. He writes about randomness like it's one of those lawnmowers you can sit on and ride: a machine with an engine designed to carry from here to there. "Don't leave the engine running," I can just imagine him writing, "unless you're ready for the player to steal the keys." This would, of course, be a genius piece of clickbait for a too-mechanical dissection of something that could be otherwise beautiful.

The end result of exposure to these blog posts is, in me, a frustrated and misplaced attention to the wrong parts of my work: Have I left the engine running? Will the player steal my keys? What is the sound of one hand clapping? The game designer's kōan places me in the wrong place -- the point is not to have the right answer, but the right question.

However, I do not want to even ask the question that the game designer asks.

I want to slide past the moon and into the stars.

[droqen]

[birds] When a bird sings, what does it mean? I should know; I have spent the better part of my life hiding out with birds, behind their flocks, among them, making myself inextricable. Yet... my only claim to understanding birds is weak at best. I know how to make my best guesses about where they will spend the day, and where they will spend the night. I know how the winds carry them from place to place, and how they carry themselves, too.

Best of all, I know how and when to stand perfectly still.